Ah, friends ! Can you think it an indifferent thing, into what part of the world the womb of nature had cast you out ? Is there no odds, upon what spot of the creation, or what age of the world your lot had fallen ? It may be, you have not seriously bethought yourselves about this matter. And because this point is so seldom touched, I will therefore dive a little more particularly and distinctly into it, and endeavour to warm your affections with a representation of the many and rich benefits you owe to this one performance of providence for you.
And we will consider it under a double respect or relation, as it respects your present comfort in this world, and as it relates to your eternal happiness in the world to come.
1. This performance of providence for you doth very much concern your present comfort in this world. All the rooms in this great house are not alike pleasant and commodious for the inha- bitants of it. You read, Psal. Ixxiv. 20. of " the dark places of ♦' the earth which are full of the habitations of cruelty ;" and many sush dismal places are found in the habitable earth. What a vast tract of the world lies as a waste wilderness !
Suppose your mothers had brought you forth in America, among the savage Indians, who herd together as brute beasts ; are scorched with heat, and starved with cold ; being naked, destitute, and defenceless. How poor, miserable, and unprovided of earthly comforts and accommodation, are many millions of the inha- bitants of this world ? What mercies do you enjoy, in respect of the amenity, fertility, temperature, and civility of the place of your
,366 3)IVIXE COKUUCT ; OH,
habitation ? What is it but a garden enclosed out of a wilderness ? I may, without partiality or vanity, say, God hath (even upon temporal accounts) provided you with one of the healthfuUest, pleasantest, and, in all respects, the best furnished room in all the great house of this world. Hear what our own * Chronicler saith of it ; ' It is the fortunate island, the paradise of pleasure, the garden ' of God ; whose vallies are like Eden, whose hills are as Lebanon,
* whose springs are as Pisgah, whose rivers are as Jordan, whose
* wall is the ocean, and whose defence is the Lord Jehovah.*
You are here provided of necessary and comfortable accommoda- tions for your bodies, that a great part of the world are unaquainted ^^ith. It is not with the poorest amongst us, as it is said to be with the poor Russians, whose poverty pinches, and bites with such sharp teeth, that their poor cry at their doors, ' Give me, and cut me ;
* give me, and kill me."*
Say not. The barbarous nations in this excel you ; that they possess the mines of silver and gold, which it may be, you think enough to salve all other inconveniencies of life. Alas poor crea- tures ! better had it been for them, if their country had brought forth briers and thorns^ instead of gold, silver, a.nd jprecions stones ; for this hath been the occasion of ruining all their other comforts in this world : this hath invited their cruel, avaricious enemies among them, under whose servitude they groan, and die without mercy : and thousands of them have chosen death, rather than life on the terms they enjoyed it. And why might not your lot have fallen there as well as where it is ? Are not they made of the same clay, and endowed with as good a nature as yourselves ? O what a dis- tinction hath divine mercy made where nature made none I Consider^ ungrateful man ! thou mightest have fallen into some of those regions, where a tainted air frequently cloys the jaws of death : where the inhabitants differ very little from the beasts in the manner of their living: but God hath provided for thee, and given the poorest among us far better accommodations of life, than the greatest among them are ordinarily provided with. O what hath providence done for you !
But all that I have said is very inconsiderable in comparison with the spiritual mercies and advantages you here enjoy for your souls. O this is such an advantageous cast of providence for you as obliges you to a thankful acknowledgment of it to all eternity. For let u« here make but a few suppositions in the case before us, and the glory of providence will shine, like a sun-beam full in your faces.
(1.) Suppose it had been your lot to have fallen into any of those
THE MYSTEKV of rUOVIDENCE. ^67
vast continents possessed by Pagans and Heathens at this day, Vvho bow down to the stock of a tree, and worship the host of heaven. This is the case of milHons and millions of millions : For Pagan idotaters (as tliat searching scholar Mr. * Berewood informs us) do not only fill the circumference of nine hundred miles in Europe, but almost the one half of Africa, more than the half of Asia, and al- most the whole of America,
O how deplorable had thy case been if a Pagan idolatress had brought thee forth, and idolatry had been sucked in with thy mother s milk ! Then, in all probability, thou hadst been at this day worshipping devils, and posting with full speed in the direct road to damnation : for these are the people of God^s wrath, Jer. x. 25. " Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen that know thee not, and " upon the families that call not upon thy name." How dreadful is that imprecation against them ? Psal. xcvii. 7. which takes hold of them and all that is theirs, " Confounded be all they that serve *' graven images, that boast themselves of idols."
(2.) Or suppose your lot had fallen among Mahometans, who, next to Pagans, spread over the greatest tract of the earth : for though Arabia bred that unclean bird, yet it was not that cage that could long contain him ; for not only the Arabians, but the Persians, Turks, and Tartars, do all bow down their backs under that grand impostor. This poison hath dispersed itself through the veins of Asia, over a great part of Africa, even the circumference of seven thousand miles, and stops not there, but hath tainted a considerable part of Europe also.
Had your lot fallen here, O what unhappy men and women had you been, notwithstanding the natural amenity and pleasantness of your native soil ! You had then adored a grand impostor, and died in a fool's pai'adise : instead of God's lively oracles, you had been (as they now are) deceived to your eternal ruin with such fond, mad, and wild dreams, as whoso considers would think, the authors had more need of manacles and fetters than arguments or sober answers.
(3.) Or if neither of these had been your lot, but you had been emptied by the womb of nature into this little spot of the earth which is christianized by profession ; but, nevertheless, for the most part over-run by Popish idolatry, and Antichristian delusions; what unhappy men and women had you been, had you sucked a Popish breast ! for this people are to be the subjects of the vials of God's wrath to be poured out successively upon them, as you may read, Rev. xvi. and the scriptures in round and plain language tell